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California Denied Right to Pass Clean Air Laws
In yet another environmental loss and big-bussiness gains, the supreme court says that California's clean air comission can't set standards for fleet vehicles emissions.
Source: Associated Press, 2004-04-29
Candidate: Judiciary
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Southern California's clean-air agency may have overstepped its authority in imposing its own anti-smog rules for city buses, airport shuttles and other vehicles.
In an 8-1 ruling, the court said regulators did not have the right to impose rules requiring private fleets to use engines that burn clean fuel and produce low emissions. It said a lower court would rule on whether the regulations could be applied to public fleets.
The rules were imposed in 2000 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air quality in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.
The regulations were intended to help bring the region's worst-in-the-nation air into compliance with federal requirements by 2010. The region could lose billions in highway funds for missing the deadline.
"L.A. really needs every tool available to clean up its air, and this will really be a significant impediment to doing so," Emily Figdor, a clean air advocate for Environment California, said of the court decision.
Wednesday's ruling was a win for oil companies and diesel engine manufacturers that claimed the local pollution rules conflicted with national standards.
However, the ruling will have little immediate effect because only a few of the vehicles currently being regulated are in private fleets, AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said.
The restrictions apply mostly to fleets of vehicles such as buses, garbage trucks, street sweepers, airport shuttles and taxi cabs. More than 5,500 clean-fuel, heavy-duty vehicles and more than 3,400 low-emission passenger vehicles have replaced old vehicles since the rules took effect.
The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles will rule on the public fleets issue. The AQMD hopes it will allow the agency to regulate state-owned or contracted vehicles along with vehicles such as airport shuttles and taxis licensed by public agencies.
Justice Antonin Scalia , writing for the court, said the emission rules appear to blocked by the federal Clean Air Act. "If one state or political subdivision may enact such rules, then so may any other; and the end result would undo Congress's carefully calibrated regulatory scheme," he wrote.
The act gives states some authority to set their own rules, but the plaintiffs said it did not allow a local regulatory agency like the AQMD to set standards.
Jed Mandel, president of the Engine Manufacturers Association, one of the plaintiffs, said the AQMD had no authority to regulate fleets owned by other public entities like the city of Los Angeles.
Mandel said the court ruling was a victory for consumers and clean air. Engines mandated by the regulations were no cleaner than the diesel-burning engines they replaced, he added.
The AQMD, however, said heavy-duty diesel fuel engines, including those targeted by the regulations, are responsible for 70 percent of the total cancer risk from air pollution in California.
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